A couple of unusual situations have happened to me this week in connection with customers which I want your feedback on.

I remember hearing a lecture by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos about their culture. He was describing how their customer service department works and how they always make sure that the customer comes first and that they old to the age-old saying that the customer is always right.

He even gave an example of when a customer called up to order pizza (something that they obviously don’t sell), the representative even gave the customer a number of a local pizza shop.

I also rate customer service extremely highly. Like any company, we don’t ALWAYS get it right. However, I do invest a huge amount of money in customer service and make sure that we are known to offer one of the best if not the best customer service in the industry.

Feel free to try me out at http://www.replytoben.com and see how quickly we respond and the kind of thoroughness that we offer in answer to your query. Please try and keep it relevant though, cos we’re not going to give you the number of your local pizza shop

However, this weeks something happened that as the British say, ‘really cheesed me off’.

To cut a long story short, a customer purchased one of our products and needed some hand-holding. That is fine and more than happy to offer.

He then refunded, which I am not a fan of, but once again everyone has their own right to refund.

Here’s when it became a bit weird though…

He then paid me back a 5th of the purchase price and agreed to send me payments according to how successful it was.

Now, performance based payments doesn’t really bother and at times I have thought of building it in to my business model as I know that a lot of customers ARE extremely successful with my products.

What did annoy me though, is that he took it upon himself to dictate the terms and that even though he had taken a refund, he was still making use of my materials which by his own admission were extremely high quality and were giving him results. It is a bit like buying a car and then asking for a refund but keeping the car and then paying every year for 5 years depending on whether you still like it. But you are going to keep the car anyway whether you pay or not.

Am I right here, or should I just be grinding my teeth and saying that the customer is always right?

The other unusual thing that happened to me this week is a very different situation, but also very interested in your take on it.

Every time I create a new product I get several requests from customers who ask if they can have it for free. Because of the fact that I am selling my latest product via webinars and I guess because of the success rate of my latest product, every time I do a webinar I have a few requests.

Most of the requests are from people who are asking because they genuinely can’t afford the product but want it so that they can create a better life for themselves.

For several reasons, in the past I have always said no. That is for my higher cost products anyway. If you see something of mine that is low priced that you want and you can’t afford it, be in touch at my helpdesk and the likelihood is that I will give it to you.

[Ben wipes his brow as he wonders if he is going to regret saying that]

Apart from anything else, no one enjoys paying for things, but that is part of living in a capitalist world. As I do have paying customers, I feel that it would disrespect those paying customers if I were to give it away to others for free. There are many other reasons for NOT giving it away for free, but in the interest of brevity I just never have done.

However, this week I had a request and I did give my product away for free. Something about the request really resonated with me and I could see that this guy:

1. Really needed a break
2. Was going to put it into action
3. Had suffered a lot

So, here’s my questions for you:

1. Is the customer ALWAYS right?
2. If not, in what kind of situations should I put my foot down?
3. Should I be giving free access to people ever and if so, under what circumstances? Just because I ‘can’, should I?

Please let me know in the comments below, and if possible be humorous as I am feeling a bit serious about things at the moment

Keeping it real in an unreal world,

Ben Shaffer